


Wings with a Mind of their Own

by Jaydeun



Category: Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: Baked Goods, Eclairs, Fluff, Fluff and Humor, If you think of wings like that anyway, Inappropriate Erections, M/M, Protective Crowley, Soft Aziraphale/Crowley (Good Omens), Temptation, Tooth-Rotting Fluff, Wing Kink, Wings
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-16
Updated: 2019-10-16
Packaged: 2020-12-20 15:57:31
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,715
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21059291
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Jaydeun/pseuds/Jaydeun
Summary: Aziraphale has a moment of uncontrolled desire at a bake shop. Oopises. Crowley is there to help. Sort of.





	Wings with a Mind of their Own

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Roasted_and_ghosted](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Roasted_and_ghosted/gifts).

> An Aziraphale POV on request from Roasted_and_Ghosted... Many thanks to Crowgirl for the Beta!

Aziraphale slammed the door shut much harder than he really meant to; it jangled the bell something terrible. He leaned his back against it, one hand fluttering against his breastbone. _Catching one’s breath_, they called it. Ridiculous phrasing, as if you could snatch up the missing ones and tuck them away for later use. Even more silly coming from a being who really wouldn’t miss them. And yet here he was, gasping and flushed, heart hammering away. _What a picture you must make,_ he told himself. If Crowley were there, he’d say—

“Angel, you look ready for a fainting sofa.”

Aziraphale blinked, eyebrows making a run for his hairline.

Because Crowley _was_ there. Long legs crossed at ankles, hip joint balancing against a bookcase, and looking for all the world like a reckless cairn heedless of gravity.

“O-oh. _Oh._” Aziraphale chirruped the words. It wasn’t like him to abuse syllables like that, but he’d just had _quite_ a shock, an embarrassing one at that, and now he teetered between being relieved to see Crowley…and…_relieved_ to see _Crowley_. “Thank _goodness_ you’re here, my dear! The most dreadful thing has just happened!”

Crowley righted himself immediately and took two swift steps about the counter and till.

“Who? Where?” he growled, and Aziraphale felt a sudden flush at getting him so—well, _riled._

“No, no, Crowley—nothing _dangerous_,” he flapped his hands in the direction of the door as if he were trying out a new magic trick and failing. Hands could be terribly awkward when you didn’t know what to do with them.

“Not dangerous?” Crowley relaxed a degree or too. Now he seemed to be taking a good look at Aziraphale’s wind-fluffed hair. “Did you _run_ to get here? Because you _never_ run.”

Aziraphale pinked over.

“I was walking. Very precipitously,” he muttered into his collar. He must look frightful, and Crowley was ever so sleek. “Ahem. Tea?”

Crowley slipped his sunglasses down and peered at him with bright yellow eyes—and a healthy dose of eager concern. Then he walked to Aziraphale’s desk chair and patted the cushion in a gesture that was both gentle and absolutely imperative.

“Sit, angel,” he said, his voice curling up at the edges and crumpling Aziraphale’s resolve. Crowley could be unfairly disarming when he wanted to be. He lowered himself to his seat, feeling the slight tremor of weightlessness that always struck him when he was the object of good will. Well, from Crowley, anyway.

“Right then,” Crowley murmured, perching on the desk so he could face Aziraphale. “What terribly awful dreadful thing has you walking very precipitously all over town?”

Aziraphale let his eyes wander up, pausing a moment at the silver buttons of Crowley’s _Gieves & Hawkes_ button-down (mainly because the situation seemed to demand a little demure grace.)

“I—I winged someone,” he said finally. Crowley waited, as if expecting more, so Aziraphale made a slight flourish with his right hand. “_Winged_, Crowley.”

“I got that,” Crowley said slowly. “I’m working out the mechanics.”

“Oh for heavens—I _put out my wings_. I nearly hit a man with them!” Aziraphale ducked his head and sighed miserably. There was simply no hiding the blush creeping up from his tartan bow tie. “I don’t know what came over me!”

“Well that’s all right, inn’it?” Crowley asked, perching on the edge of the desk. “I mean, I’ve demoned a few people in my time—” he made a frame for his face with his fingers and thumbs. “Downright useful practice.”

Aziraphale frowned. He never approved of that. Though of course it _was _useful; Crowley had used it only a few months ago at the one-time nunnery to terrorize a vicious paintballer.

“I suppose,” he fretted. “But you frighten them into passing out, my dear, so it’s not very likely they remember the experience, anyway.”

“That’s what you’re worried about?” Crowley had hopped off the desk and offered a hand to Aziraphale. “Come on, then—we’ll just go find him and rearrange his memory a little,”

“Oh, but it’s _not_ that, though,” Aziraphale complained. What kind of angel would he be if he couldn’t take care of a little misunderstanding—_really. _“The gentleman won’t remember it.”*

(* He would, in fact, remember a very nice latte and that the lovely woman behind the counter smiled every so brightly at him when she made change. He remembered that part so well, that he asked her out two days later, and they are presently on their honeymoon.)

“Erm. Then—what _are_ you worried about? You don’t think upstairs took notice, do you?”

“No, no, no, not at all,” Aziraphale insisted; he didn’t need Crowley going incandescent again. Even if it was quite something to behold. He positively _glowed_ when he was feeling protective. Crowley tapped his chin with an errant index finger, then sat back down again. He also took his glasses off, pocketed them, and turned his eyes back to Aziraphale with the rather unavoidable knowingness of someone who has been around the block for 6000 years…_with_ you.

“Ok. What are you not telling me?” he asked.

“It’s a rather long list, you know,” Aziraphale huffed, and Crowley gave him a grin.

“It is _not_. But I’ll humor you; let’s limit it to what you’re not telling be about _this afternoon_.” he laced his fingers over his knee. “You got your wings out because…?”

Aziraphale pouted his lip.

“That’s the whole trouble with it,” he admitted sheepishly. “I didn’t _mean_ to.”

“You, what, spontaneously winged?” Crowley asked, and Aziraphale squirmed uncomfortably in his seat, twisting his fingers together until he’d nearly bound them up in his waistcoat. He was _quite _sure he shouldn’t trust his voice just then, so he gave a few decisive nods.

Crowley opened his mouth. Then shut it. Then opened it again, just enough for a slightly-too-long canine to peek over this lips. Aziraphale tried to focus on that, and not on the sudden cramping embarrassment that was welling up from his stomach as if it had no manners at all. At last, Crowley cleared his throat.

“I, uh, I wouldn’t worry about that,” he began, and then seemed to warm to his own reply. “I mean _everybody_ does that. Some. Right? Wings—got a mind of their own, don’t they?”

Aziraphale let out a breath he’d been holding.

“I suppose?” They _did_ twitch now and then of their own accord, and pinion feathers were easy enough to ruffle weren’t they? “It’s just—the poor fellow was just behind me, Crowley.”

“Behind you.” Crowley’s fingers gripped the edge of the desk. “Behind you _doing what?_”

“Ordering coffee, I think?” Aziraphale tutted, because why would that matter? But Crowley laughed suddenly.

“Wait, you were in a café? Which one? Oh wait. You went to Mally’s, didn’t you.”

Aziraphale nodded slowly. “They have _eclairs_,” he admitted. “Lovely fat eclairs with cream filling—you know the kind—and they have simply the _best _chocolate frosting with sliced strawberries and Chantilly, and—"

Crowley frowned in the way you might do if you were suppressing a fit of mirth. Aziraphale drew himself up a little taller in his seat.

“If you are just going to laugh at me—”

“I am _not_ laughing, and I should get credit for that,” Crowley insisted. “Look, I said it—I’ll say it again. Stuff happens.”

“But I am a very dignified person, Crowley! I don’t just go letting my wings out; I am _reserved_, I am _demure_—I am—” a thought had just occurred to Aziraphale, and it derailed the rest of his synonyms. He gazed up at Crowley. “Do you mean it has happened to you, too?”

Crowley made a noise. At least, Aziraphale assumed the strangled _grkk_ had come from Crowley and not, say, a mouse in his death throes beneath the floorboards.

“Me?” Crowley slithered off the desk and made a short circuit round the rug. “Eh, sure. Probably?”

Aziraphale’s face fell.

“It _hasn’t_ happened to you, has it?” he asked. Crowley sucked in a breath, then let it out in a fine stream.

“Well, I mean—eh, not _wings_. I don’t wing unless I mean it. Ahem. Urk.” Crowley seemed to be vibrating slightly.

“Then what, Crowley?” Aziraphale asked. This did not help at all, unless you count the rather charming rouge that suddenly rose in Crowley’s cheeks.

“Ngk, phhfbt,” said Crowley. And though he _did _often abuse his syllables, this was bad even for him. “SSsnot. Em. Oh hell—” he stuck his tongue out, long, slithery and forked. “Thith. Thith ith what hapenth.”

“Oh—you—” Aziraphale tucked his chin into his collar, and couldn’t’ help batting his lashes a few times. “You’re just doing that to make me feel better.”

“Ith it working?” Crowley asked, tasting the air with a darling pink _flick_ before tucking his tongue back where it belonged. “Happens. Sssometimes,” he added, and while the blush had begun to ebb it still put roses in his delightful cheeks. Aziraphale took it his time, rocking forward onto his feet. 

“Well. I think you are allowed to snake whenever you like. Though you’d think an angel my age would have a little self-control,” He looked over his shoulder, half expecting his wings to go darting into existence again in rebellion.

“Nah, self control? S’overrated.” Crowley traced the line of his own jaw with one thumb; he wasn’t given to the pensive mood, though Aziraphale thought it sat upon him beautifully. “Anyway, I was on my way here to take you for dessert. I feel like a little temptation.”

“Tsk. I’ve had quite enough temptation for one day,” Aziraphale said, though he allowed Crowley to tug him backward through the shop to the door. 

“Oh I’m not tempting _you_. I’m tempting _me. _Let’s go get you an éclair, shall we?”

Aziraphale tried not to wriggle excitedly. And failed.

“But what about my wings?” he asked when Crowley sauntered toward the (illegally) parked Bentley. Crowley turned to look at him one more time before sliding his glasses into place—long enough for Aziraphale to see the softness at the corner of each eye, playful lines that weren’t wicked at all, while being very wicked indeed.

“I promise, angel, _no one will notice but me._”

Well, Aziraphale thought, that made all the difference.


End file.
